Complete the whole picture on someone before you put yourself in danger

Say you've just located someone online: It might be to meet up for a date or make a purchase based on a posting they previously left. Or, alternately, it could be a situation in which a company's customer service representative has arranged a specific appointment for a private call with you and phones you shortly after. Whatever the beginning of this interaction, there's a phone conversation, and afterwards, further plans for action.

Yet a voice of doubt goes through your mind. Who did I just talk to, and are they really who they say they are? You might feel vulnerable in this situation, but you have at least one very important tool that can counter any nagging feelings, and that is a reverse number lookup to verify this person on your own.

Here's another example from recent headlines. This summer, a scam letter appeared in the mail of many alleging to be from an airline company with a name like "American Airways." The letter asked recipients to call a certain number in order to redeem non-existent travel benefits.

Seemingly produced to take advantage of the announcement that American Airlines and US Airways were merging, this hoax is especially suspicious now that this partnership seems to have temporarily been suspended pending a court case.

But even if you didn't know any of that, you could figure out soon enough through a free reverse lookup to see the origin of those digits and where they trace back to. This is just as applicable for people you think you can trust as con artists you're pretty sure you can't.